“Esteemed knight, I do apologize if I am overstepping my bounds… but could you possibly lend us a hand? To be honest, the two of us can hardly even defeat a single goblin. We must… we must keep Kirito-senpai safe!”
Renri squinted against the dazzling light in Ronye’s eyes.
He thought it a light that belonged only to those who had carved their mission onto their heart, those determined to accomplish their mission even if it meant casting their lives away.
—Where had I left mine behind, when even a novice trainee girl, yet to graduate from school, has it? Or perhaps I had lacked mine ever since I first woke up as an integrity knight in this Human Empire…?
Renri heard a dry voice trickle from his own mouth.
“You should be fine here… I think. His Excellency, Knight Commander Bercouli, is the one commanding the Defense Army Second Unit and if anything gets past his guard, that’s equivalent to the end of the Human World anyway. It’ll end up the same no matter where you run. I plan to sit here until the battle ends. I won’t get in your way if you intend to stay anywhere close…”
With his words fading off into his soundless breathing, Renri went back, deeper into the tent, and sat down with a thud.
It was about then—
That smoke shells thrown by Kosogi, the chief of the mountain goblins, and the rest blew up at the left flank of the frontmost lines where Integrity Knight Eldrie awaited. Taking advantage of the dense, rising fumes, a flood of goblins began slipping past the defense line like water through coarse fabric.
Neither Renri nor two female novice trainees could have possibly known that their aim was precisely the annihilation of the supply unit at the Human Empire Defense Army’s rearmost.
* * *
The progression towards destruction advanced rapidly for the collection of light quantums that made up that soul, that fluct light, belonging to Sigrosig, the chief of the giants.
However, as the collapse caused heavy damage only to certain parts rather than it as a whole, there was a delay before his fluct light ceased functioning. On the other hand, that phenomenon induced a particular «side effect».
With the hatred and bloodthirst Sigrosig had directed towards the humans for decades released all at once, they overflowed from his fluct light and reached even the light cube storing Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio’s soul through the «Main Visualizer» regulating the Light Cube Cluster.
Direct control of phenomena via imagination. The power termed «incarnation» by the integrity knights robbed the freedom of movement from Fanatio’s body despite her lengthy experience.
Charging forth with his humongous frame of almost four mel with terrible vigor, the giant chief swung the large hammer held in his right hand up high.
—Why won’t they move!?
Fanatio thought to beat some sense into her two legs that refused to listen to her, but she could not even ball her hands into fists to do so.
Even with the giant chief as her opponent, the deputy commander of the Order of the Integrity Knights would never freeze up with a mere glare.
She told herself so, but still, her body seemed frozen in her shooting stance with her right knee on the ground.
During a bout with Knight Commander Bercouli, she could not gain any ground with her sword prepared—she went through such an experience. However, this was utterly different from that heavy yet somehow tender presence that emanated from the knight commander and enveloped her. Pain, like leather belts covered in iron thorns wrapped over her one after another, tormented her entire being.
The giant chief, Sigrosig, bellowed out a strange yell as he kicked the goblins and orcs who should have been his allies aside and charged closer. Cutting the distance down below fifteen mel.
He would be no challenge in a one-versus-one; that was how it should have been.
Among the ten lords in the Dark Empire, Fanatio acknowledged only the might of the leader of the Order of the Dark Knights, Shasta. In a prior bout, her helmet unfortunately cracked at the end of an intense battle exceeding thirty minutes and she tasted humiliation when Shasta drew his sword back after seeing Fanatio’s bare face.
However, she never considered defeat even at that time. She was under a strict restriction from Bercouli regarding the usage of the armament full control art when fighting against dark knights. Hence, she should not be falling behind anyone else. The very thought of freezing up from a mere glare was preposterous.
That said, the phenomenon that exceeded Fanatio’s understanding was drawing closer before her eyes, moment by moment.
It would not even take ten seconds before that gigantic iron hammer swings down upon her. She had to stand up and fix her sword stance at once. If she could intercept it with a slash, the Heaven Piercing Sword, a distinguished divine instrument, would never lose to that coarse iron hammer on Sigrosig.
Despite that, she could not stand. Unseen shackles bound Fanatio and the giant chief, a dark red gleam seething in his two eyes, approached before her eyes—
“Humankilldeldelde———
Spouting a scream that sounded no longer intelligible as his iron hammer roared down.
——Your Excellency.
Fanatio quietly muttered with her immobilized mouth.
Dakira Synthesis Twenty-two, a low ranking knight, had offered everything to a sole person ever since awakening as a knight..
Not to the ruler, the highest minister, Administrator. Neither was it to the leader of the knight order, Bercouli.
It was to Deputy Commander Fanatio and no one else. Dakira was strongly drawn by her relentless intensity and the anguish she concealed.
That emotion could be no other than love, going by the Human Empire’s standards.
However, Dakira sealed all emotions away due to a variety of reasons and served as a faceless and nameless member of the unit directly under Fanatio, the «Four Oscillation Blades». Being by her side alone made Dakira feel more fortunate than ever hoped for.
The Four Oscillation Blades were, by no means, some elite unit among the low ranking knights.
Fanatio had gathered those lacking power, judged to be at risk if assigned to the front lines on their own, and had them learn combination techniques to raise their survival rate, creating a so-called «unit of leftovers».
As such, they garnered low evaluations from the highest minister and chief elder, and in actual fact, they, the Four Oscillation Blades, all committed the heavy blunder of suffering heavy injuries against the two student swordsmen from the common folk in that rebellion half a year ago. But what hurt Dakira much more was how they failed to protect Fanatio. The time spent on the bed in the ward was filled with incessant thoughts of how it would have been better to die back then.
However, Fanatio spoke kindly instead of harshly towards Dakira after the injuries healed.
With the silver mask that she had never taken off in public removed, the deputy knight commander showed a beautiful smile and slapped all four of their shoulders in turn as she spoke.
—I, too, was saved by the rebels right before my death. Gentlemen, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, that was a good fight. I had never seen a finer coordination of the «Encircling Bladed Oscillation Dance».
Dakira’s mind was made up, then, as tears ran under that helmet.
To not allow any harm to befall the venerated deputy knight commander the next time.
And this was that very «next time».
Regardless of the orders to stay stationed until further commands, Dakira leapt out from the ranks the instant upon feeling abnormality in Fanatio’s state.
There were over twenty mel until Fanatio, on her knee, and the giant chief swinging a humongous iron hammer down onto her from overhead.
Covering that distance in time was not viable with the physical ability of a low ranking knight. However, Dakira dashed on as a blurred streak of light and jumped before Fanatio, intercepting the iron hammer roaring down with a two-handed greatsword.
The resultant noise, shaking the earth, flared out alongside a flash tinged with red.
Though Dakira’s greatsword was far sharper than the guards’ weapons could hope to be, it could not compare to the high ranking knights’ divine instruments in terms of priority. On the other hand, Sigrosig’s iron hammer had its priority raised to a terrible level through the «power of incarnation from bloodthirst» streaming into it.
The skirmish collapsed in a mere half-second and numerous cracks ran through the greatsword’s blade. It took another instant before the sword shattered into fleeting shafts of light. Dakira threw the handle away at once and intercepted the falling humongous iron hammer with bare hands.
Multiple dull noises echoing throughout the body.
Both arms breaking in numerous places from the wrist to the upper arm.
Vision hurling into whiteness from pain. Fresh blood spurting from between armor joints, staining the helmet’s surface.
“Ku… hh… oooh!!”
With teeth clenched, Dakira molded the scream struggling to escape into strength and caught the iron hammer, beyond those two hands’ capacity to support, from below with that helmet.
The steel crossed mask shattered without resistance and unpleasant noises could be heard coming from Dakira’s neck, back, and two knees. The pain surging throughout as scorching flames dipped everything visible into a deep crimson.
However, the lower ranking knight, Dakira Synthesis Twenty-two, did not fall.
Fanatio was right behind. This detestable weapon must not be swung down.
—I will protect her. This time, for sure.
“E…. eaaaaaahh!!”
A shrill yell rang out from Dakira’s throat, freed from the crossed mask’s voice morphing function.
The blood dripping from the injuries all over enveloped Dakira as bluish-white flames.
Gathering at those broken arms, the flames burst as dazzling explosions. The iron hammer shot back, blown over ten mel away accompanied by Sigrosig’s huge frame.
Dakira slowly collapsed while listening to the heavy quake from the giant falling.
“…Dakira!!”
A shout, almost a scream, shot in from point-blank range.
—Aah, Fanatio-sama called out my name.
—How many years has it been?
Dakira smiled while crumbling into the arms extended from the deputy knight commander as her short, straw-colored pigtails and freckled cheeks laid exposed with the loss of her helmet.
Dakira was born and raised in a small village beside the sea in Southacroith South Empire. Her parents were poor, holding no family name and fishing for a living, but the girl blessed with the strength of a man grew up healthily while helping out with her parents’ work.
That girl committed a taboo at the age of sixteen. She fell in love with her close friend of the same gender who was a year older.
Of course, she never found it in herself to confess. Unable to deal with her suffering, Dakira sought penance from Goddess Stacia in an empty church altar late at night.
However, as the altar was connected to the Central Cathedral’s automated elders mechanism, Dakira was detected to have violated a taboo and was brought to the Axiom Church, becoming an integrity knight with all of her memories pilfered.
Though she could not remember her name any longer, the older girl Dakira had loved resembled Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio a little.
At peace, Dakira looked on with her dimly blurred vision as Fanatio’s beautiful features crumpled and tears trickled from her long eyelashes.
—The venerated deputy knight commander is crying for me.
She could think of nothing that could make her happier. She had accomplished what she set out to do at the end of those long, painful days and all that remained as death approached was satisfaction.
“Dakira… don’t die!! I’ll tend to you this moment!!”
A heartrending voice rang out at her ears once more.
Dakira urged her broken left hand upwards with the last of her strength and with her trembling fingertips, gently wiped away the drops along Fanatio’s cheeks.
Grinning, Dakira formed those thoughts she had always kept hidden deep in her chest into a whisper.
“Fanatio… sama… I shall… forever… adore… you……”
In that moment, Integrity Knight Dakira synthesis Twenty-two’s Life reached its complete end.
The first fatality from the knight order lowered her eyelids for all eternity.
What——What had I been doing?!!
Fanatio screamed in her chest as she hugged the small body covered in wounds tightly.
The giant chief, Sigrosig, who tried to stand up was reflected within her vision warped with tears along with the remaining three members of the «Four Oscillation Blades» fiercely charging forward in response.
Dakira. Jeis. Hobren. Giro. She had placed them directly under her to train them up and to protect them. Though she gave them only strict words, they were her cherished younger siblings. Despite that, she was protected instead, with one of their lives even sacrificed—
“……Unforgivable!!”
That word was directed at Sigrosig as well as her own self.
She would allow no more casualties. She would protect those three to the end, for Dakira’s sake as well.
That resolve became a «power of incarnation from love» and radiated from Fanatio’s soul with an intensity surpassing the abnormal bloodthirst seething from Sigrosig.
The icy thorns, binding her entire body, thawed in an instant.
Laying down Dakira’s corpse, Fanatio stood up straight as the Heaven Piercing Sword noiselessly floated from the ground into her right hand.
Before her was the scene of Jeis, Hobren, and Giro knocked away with a single swipe of Sigrosig’s left arm after they leapt forward with their greatswords raised.
The crimson light residing within the giant’s two eyes seemed of the flames in the demon world far under the earth. Even the surrounding goblins and orc soldiers had ceased their approach, seemingly afraid.
“Kee… keel… Keelllll!!”
An abnormal scream roared from the giant who sluggishly stood up. However, there was no longer even a smidgen of surprise or fear within Fanatio’s chest.
Smoothly pointed straight towards the sky by her right hand, the Heaven Piercing Sword—
Gained a coating of pure white light with a dull rumble. That dazzling radiance stretched on for over five mel from the sword’s tip and remained as such.
“Humankeeeelllll——!!”
Swinging the iron hammer with both hands, Sigrosig jumped at Fanatio.
“…Return, unto the earth.”
Fanatio carelessly swung down with that murmur. Having extended several times its previous length, the blade of light drew a white streak through the air as it struck the iron hammer’s blunt surface.
A crisp noise echoed with the gigantic weapon dividing into two. Burnt red from the cross section, the melted iron splashed all over.
The huge sword of light came into contact with Sigrosig’s head just like that—slicing down into the ground without its momentum even waning.
The giants behind and the guards of the Human Empire descended into silence at that scene; the legendary warrior, boasting of the world’s largest body, was severed into halves while still airborne.
Fanatio raised the blade of light over her head with a satisfying sound from the two lumps of flesh, falling with a damp noise, and shouted out loud.
“First Unit, middle, forward!! Repel the enemies!!”
* * *
The waves of attacks from the never-ending stream of plains goblins sank Deusolbert into impatience.
There was no chance he would be defeated or even challenged by some average goblin soldier in one-versus-one combat, no matter how many times that was repeated. The mountain of corpses burnt by the flames from the arrows he shot earlier served as actual proof of that.
However, he cou
ld not take on all of the enemy troops alone as they came as a wide, horizontal wave. He could only leave most of those on the sides to the guards from the Defense Army.
In terms of individual expertise, the guards surpassed the enemy troops by a significant gap. Their sword techniques, polished through half a year of strict training, were certainly faster and sharper than the goblins who relied on their strength in swinging their machetes. But that strength difference was far less sure than the overwhelming gap between an integrity knight and goblin soldiers. It would be tough to overcome those numbers, several times their own, with purely skill.
Deusolbert keenly felt the desire to share with all of the guards the great strength his body was endowed with. But naturally, there was no art capable of that.
The guards under him lost their lives one after another, one jumped upon by multiple goblins, another collapsing from exhaustion. Deusolbert felt as though his own Life was shaved away each time he heard their shrieks echo through the battlefield.
So this was «war»?
It was utterly different from the old fights: sweeping up intruders on the ground while atop a flying dragon or a one-versus-one duel with a dark knight. It was an ugly war of attrition with each moment certain to add to the number of casualties.
The pride of the integrity knights served no purpose on this battlefield.
Was it not yet? Was the order for the unit to retreat not given yet?
Even the knowledge of how much time had passed since the start of the battle escaped him. Deusolbert cut through the advancing enemy soldiers with the longsword in his right hand and randomly shot with the Conflagrant Flame Bow whenever he could. With his calm lost without his notice, he failed to notice the strange movements taken by a slice of the enemy troops.
The new chief of the plain goblins, Shibori, was far more of a fool than the mountain goblins’ chief, Kosogi; the same went for his cruel nature.
Shibori recognized the integrity knights leading the enemy troops as no more than large magical beasts. He made light of them, thinking that no matter how strong they were, they were just one white ium on their own, doomed after being surrounded.